History
Beginnings (2012 - 2013) In 2012, only two of the four Failures had Xbox 360s. Arran and William had become friends on PlayStation during this time and later in the year, William got an Xbox. The two then became friends on Xbox. Eli had an Xbox during this time and played several games that made Jay want to get an Xbox as well. Namely Halo: Reach, especially after a match where the two lost a 2v1 (split-screen) match against another player in multiplayer. The match was brutal and is considered the first massacre of the group. On Christmas Day of 2012, Jay got an Xbox 360. It was not until a month later that he got Xbox Live. As soon as he did, a name was generated for him: StoneHarpy4. While truly honored with such a glorious name he decided to change it two days later to Scout 156, which remains today. He added Eli, also known as HomewardApple16 then, as his first friend since the two were cousins. The second game that Jay installed since obtaining Xbox Live was Happy Wars1, a free-to-play battle game. Two teams of fifteen (an astounding number at the time) would go head-to-head taking out enemy spawn towers, slicing each other, taking turns getting eaten by quicksand traps, and sieging the other side's castle. It was on this game where the four eventually united. A few days after Jay had gotten Happy Wars, he was playing alone and just finished a match. He then promptly received a friend request from someone named lilwilli3. Being the first one he had, he accepted it. Immediately following this came a party invite from the same person. He had never been in a party chat before and therefore had no microphone. A voice came through the TV speakers saying hello and whatnot and then asked him if he wanted to play Minecraft. "Sure," replied Jay through the messaging system. Jay invited him to the world he had made a few day prior. He was also still very new to the game and did not know much. The two made a small hut outside of the main area were Jay had built his crumbling house. The first or second morning of the game, a creeper welcomed them at the door of the hut and effectively ruined the front of the house and the crops that were planted in the garden. This was the first assassination attempt. Not much else happened the first day, but a friendship was set in place, one that is still present today. The following weekend, Jay was able to meet Arran when William brought them to a party together. The three played more Minecraft on a new world. During the first five minutes Jay was collecting sand in a hole where a creeper exploded when Arran tried to suffocate him using falling sand. Quite a memorable first impression. Jay acquired his first microphone headset roughly two weeks later. The Four Unite It took a while for Eli to join the fray. While he did not have Minecraft, he did meet William and Arran shortly after Jay did. The four fought together in Happy Wars, however Eli had no communications since we did not realize Kinects could be used as a microphone. In August of the same year, Eli finally acquired Minecraft and figured out how to use his Kinect as a microphone. The Failure Four then set up a world on Minecraft, hosted by Eli. On Eli's first night, he was stuck on top of a tree after running from a zombie and being shot by a skeleton. The assassination attempt was foiled as Eli did live through it. The four all made makeshift houses and beds for the first few nights in the seemingly peaceful world, completely unaware that there was something else in the world with them. On one of the first nights there was a thunderstorm. Arran, who loves pigs, watched in horror as his pet pig was struck by lightning and was turned into a zombie pigman. While not completely unheard of, this event caused much laughter and Arran was never the same afterwards. But, another night a few days later, Eli claimed to have been attacked by an axe-wielding lunatic while improving upon his wheat garden for a brief moment. Not one of the other three were around him, so this puzzled everyone and they claimed he must have had too many fried cow utters. The events did not stop there, oh no. Later, the four decided to go on a mining expedition. They stumbled upon a ravine not far from their village. One of them noticed a single spider web at the very bottom. All four of them jumped into it, except for Eli, who busted his head open on a rock. The mysterious open web proved there to be a mineshaft connected to the ravine! After finding an abundance of ores and dirt, the four came upon an end of a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel sat one single leaf block, with not a tree to be found nearby, as the tunnel was far underground and too narrow and short for a tree. The four, mainly Eli, William, and Jay, became terrified of the thought of meeting a white-pupiled Steve in the dark and narrow mineshaft. After much screaming and panicking the four ran out of the cursed mineshaft and vowed to never return to it. The world was active for roughly seven months after its creation before it was left abandoned. After some time it was converted to creative mode where Eli and Jay built ships and a dam for the main river. Only one other unexplained occurrence happened on survival mode. Near the time of the mineshaft incident, Eli noticed a fire in the forest behind the village. William and Jay investigated and noticed that a straight line of tree had caught fire as if all at once since the flames were still somewhat small. No one could have set them ablaze that quickly on survival. That event is still unexplained to this day. Becoming Commanders Fall of 2013 saw that the four engage upon a war that would lead to several thousand casualties. In Halo Wars, they took on the Covenant that was terrorizing civilian planets and stealing cows. During their crusades of cleansing the Covenant, the Flood were stumbled upon, proving to be even deadlier. While the Covenant could for the most part speak English and be reasoned with, the Flood could not2. One terrifying thing about the Flood was their methods of recruitment and expansion. They send little minions about the size of a toilet bowl to rip a whole in their victim's chest and take control over the body within seconds. The infected person was then apart of the Flood as it is revealed that all Flood units share the same mind, stemming from the Gravemind. Does this sound like communism to you? Well, it did to them! So, the Flood are dealt with as quickly as possible to both stop people (and other creatures) from being infected and to further halt communism. And Then Spartans In the Christmas of 2013, Jay was the last of the Failures to receive Halo: Reach. Thus begins the times of Reach. The four were called to Reach to investigate why some of the citizens were missing their cows as the milk supply was running low. Upon reaching the planet, it was discovered that the Covenant, another form of the Successors, had taken the cows and were now declaring was on us. The four fought through the campaign and other Successor spartans. It was during this time, early 2014, that the Failures were formed officially. Arran was to be the leader (F1), Jay second-in-command (F2), William support (F3), and Eli cannon fodder (F4). Arran's leader status only lasted a day, however, as during a match he stated he hated the map Pinnacle, a favorite of the other three. This enraged William and especially Eli, who immediately called for an impeachment. The motion went through with two yeas (Eli and William), one nay (Arran), and one abstain (Jay). It was decided then and there that Jay become the new leader Arran be demoted to F4, with everyone moving up in the F ranks. Arran was no too pleased with this. It was also around this time that they were involved in Iron Brigade, a mechanized warfare game that takes places shortly after the First World War. Arran was the heavy, William and Eli machine gunners, and Jay artilleryman. After the earth was defended from the evil communist robots known as Tubes, the four were deployed to Mars to further stop the vile ideologies from spreading. This time the main enemy was a bear controlled by a Russian psychopath. Minor Events Around the summer of 2013, the four indulged in escaping a theater that they were imprisoned in. In Battleblock Theater, they were tortured by going through seemingly endless corridors of traps such as spikes, flames, and even a man-eating beast. Eli had several run-ins with the beast. It was toss him in the air helplessly and toy with him before devouring him whole. Quite the sight it was. Of course, he would just be pooped back out, only to be massacred again. They also took up bank robbery in France. In Monaco, they hacked terminals and set off many alarms, as most of their missions ended with them running with bullets coming their way. Along the way they stumbled upon a group of really short people called Keflings. The four aided their construction and survival by setting up strategic systems. William was the king of the icy parts of Greenland. Jay the Kaiser of the Austria-Hungary lands, and Eli the Sultan of Shegypt. The system they developed was effective and simple. Eli helped gather resources and levelled the Keflings up. Jay organized the production lines of the Keflings. William assisted Arran with construction. Eli's kingdom in Shegypt ended after he committed mass genocide of the people after the princess married a frog. This is what caused his madness and anger towards the poor people of the land. Substantial Growth (2014) Tanks In the early start of 2014, the Failures engaged in tank warfare against the Successors. Battles took place all over the globe, just as the Happy Wars battle did. Some of the old battlefields were fought on once again. In Worlds of Tanks, three of the four usually formed a squad and stayed together while Arran remained a heavy tank. Jay did have a disadvantage as he was not allowed to form his Mk. IV Landship crew. Birthplace of the Capitol On March 26th, 2014, Jay created a new Minecraft world for the brand new Title Update 14. He started it3 with Arran, William's uncle, and one of Arran's friends. This update brought villager trading and desert temples along with many other things. The world he generated had the spawn right next to a desert temple and a village, so they were quite ecstatic. The village itself was halfway flooded with many of the houses' doors too high. Arran's friend made a system of connecting several of the houses with covered walkways, which remain the same design they were made with today. After an hour or so of exploring what the update had to offer, the four of them left the world. Only Jay and Arran would return to this world. For some reason, this world became the main world the Failures use and it is still being built upon as of this writing (Sept. 26, 2019). Once the other two Failures joined the world, roles were set out. William was a major miner and policeman. Arran was the architect, alchemist, and baker. Jay was a farmer and miner. Eli was a lumberjack and ran his own wood-selling business4. However, the four did all go mining, as it is quite custom to do so in Minecraft. In the construction of the Village, Arran turned a medium-sized villager house into a large four-story residential building. The first floor is mainly an open area, but has a large table surrounded by open windows on one end. The back door leads to a small garden. The second story can house three people. This is where Eli, Jay, and William took up residence. The top story housed Arran and was a large open area similar to the first floor. It had large windows that overlooked the northern side. The basement was the alchemy shop where Arran would occasionally host a chemistry session on potions-making. One of the first buildings constructed was the community house. It was basically a villager house but added on to. The four slept here for the first few days. A line mine was set up near the back of the village. It was down to Y-levels 12 - 15 to help find diamonds. Most of the buildings constructed during these early days are still the same, except for a few that have been renovated. After a month or so, it was very noticeable that the villagers were dying off due to lack of care towards them. With only one villager left, he was lead to a small cave that was underneath the community house where he was kept secured and safe. It is worth pointing out that this particular villager survived a creeper explosion and being shot by an arrow from a skeleton. Somewhere down the line it was decided that there should be a mayor of the Village. It was decided that Jay be the mayor by the other three. This did not change much of anything. Defense of Earth In July of 2014 Arran introduced them to a new game called Destiny, which was being made by the company that produced the beloved Halo series. July saw the beta for the game for just a few days. Immediately the four were astounded how good and fun the game was, despite it just being a beta. Well, a ginormous floating orb called the Traveler blessed the Failures during their conquest of ridding the earth of Successors. After a few prosperous years, the Traveler went silent and an alien species known as the Fallen savagely took over every single place on earth except for a small city in the Russian Empire. This was known as the Last City. All four Failures were killed during their retreat to the Last City. Thus ends the tale of the Four Failures. Just kidding. They were each revived by their own Ghosts, which were even smaller floating orbs (these could talk!) and eventually met up in the Tower. Arran, William, and Eli practiced witchcraft and were able to become Warlocks while Jay was a Hunter. Unfortunately they could not all go out at once, so the four set out in groups of two, mainly sticking to Arran with William, and Eli with Jay. The beta allowed them to partake the first strike of the game. The strike's boss was a giant robotic eyeball that supplied the Fallen with alien nicotine, ether. On the first attempt, Eli, Jay, and William put it upon themselves to stop it once and for all. This proved to be no easy feat, They did step back in time to defend some dungeons. In Dungeon Defenders, three of them played as knights while Arran was a mage. However, Jay was a monk for a short while. 1 This was the first major war for the Failures. It was a war that lasted for several years. Through snowy fields in Finland to fields in Transylvania, much blood was spilled over a conflict that is not completely known. William and Eli would be the major Warrior Commanders, Arran the Mage casting spells at people, and Jay the Cleric healing and resurrecting people.2Except for the Gravemind. 3The name of this world is TU14, showing off Jay's exceptional naming abilities. 4This business was a burden to the economy as he sent it in to a depression.